Dist. 33, Art. 1, Q. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/33/q/bon-sent-I-d33-a1-q3
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### Question III. *Whether one notion is predicated of another notion.*

Thirdly, inquiry is made concerning the comparison of one notion to another. And it is asked, whether one notion or property of one person is predicated of another. And that it is so, it appears:

1. *By an expository syllogism.* For of necessity it follows, as is said in the *Prior [Analytics]*: this *A* is *B*; this *A* is *C*, the same [middle] being demonstrated: therefore *C* is *B*; and this syllogism is founded upon that self-evident principle:

*whatsoever things are the same as one and the same thing are the same as one another*. Let, then, such a syllogism be made: the Father is paternity; the Father is unbegottenness: therefore paternity is unbegottenness. If you say that "accident" sins against this consequence and against that principle, as appears here: Peter is an individual; Peter is a man: therefore man is an individual; against this it is objected that, where there is an accident, there also is accidental predication; but when it is said: "the Father is paternity, the Father is unbegottenness," there is not accidental predication, since it is in the abstract: therefore there is no accident there. — Likewise, it follows well concretively: the Father generates; the Father is unbegotten: therefore the unbegotten generates; and yet thus the predication is more imported by way of an accident: therefore much more strongly does it follow in the abstract: therefore this is true: paternity is unbegottenness.

2. Likewise, this is shown *a minori* thus: greater is the union of properties in one person or in an incommunicable supposit than [the union] of properties in one common nature; but so great is the union of properties in one common nature that one is the other, as goodness is wisdom: therefore much more strongly in [one] person is one property predicated of another.

3. Likewise, greater is the union of properties in one person than [the union] of property and essence in a person — since there the union as to the thing is equal, and as to the mode property agrees more with property than property with nature or essence — but so great is the union of essence and property in a person that the one is predicated of the other, as paternity is deity: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, greater is the union of properties in one person than [the union] of two natures in the same person — but on account of the agreement of the natures in the one person of Christ there is the communication of idioms, since God is man and man is God: therefore by parity of reason, on account of the agreement of properties in one hypostasis, the one is predicated of the other.

**On the contrary:**

1. As person is to person, so is notion to notion; but one person is not predicated of another person: therefore neither is one notion of another notion.

2. Likewise, what is predicated of something in the abstract does not make a number with it: therefore if notion is predicated of notion, there are not several notions, but one.

3. Likewise, if notion is predicated of notion, [then] spiration is generation, since this is true: "the Father spirates the Holy Spirit," and "to spirate is to generate": therefore this likewise will be true: "the Father generates the Holy Spirit."

### Conclusion.

> *Two notions of one person can be predicated of one another in the concrete, but not in the abstract.*

**I respond:** It must be said that there is predication by identity and predication by inherence. Predication by inherence is in concretion, and this is by reason of the supposit, as *the white [thing] is musical*. But predication by identity is in abstraction and by reason of the form, not of the supposit, as *justice is goodness*.

I say therefore that notion to notion can be compared in two ways: either in concretion, or in abstraction. If in concretion, thus the one is predicated of the other, as *the one generating is the one spirating*, and *the Father is unbegotten*, and this, because they agree in the supposit. But if in abstraction — since then the notion purely imports the relation itself, and in one and the same person there are diverse relations without composition of themselves, and this according to diverse comparisons — thus the one is not predicated of the other.

**To the arguments:**

1. *To that, then, which is objected concerning the syllogism*; it must be said that against that syllogism the [fallacy of] accident is at play, as is clear in the example previously set down; whence the form of the syllogism does not hold. Likewise that principle must be understood according to "the same." For it does not follow that, if any two things are like one [thing], they are like one another, unless they are like according to the same [respect]. Likewise it is also required, in relations, for there to be identity of one to another, that not only [the things] be in the same [supposit] and according to the same, but also that they be ordered to the same.

Since therefore diverse relations in the same person are not [ordered] to the same nor to the same [term], therefore it does not follow that, if they agree in the supposit, on this account they should agree among themselves. And thus it is plain that neither the syllogism nor the principle applies.

2. *To that which is objected*, that there is no accident there; it must be said that the fallacy of accident is not only attended to as regards an accidental predicate, but is also attended to as regards a variation of the [middle] principle, such that it agrees in one acceptance only, [but] in another is foreign [to the matter]; so it is in the case proposed. For the Father, according to one comparison, is unbegottenness; according to another is paternity; so that paternity in no way expresses comparison to a prior, neither positively nor privatively, so far as concerns its own nature: and so it is plain etc.

3. *To that which is objected* through the likeness of the union of two [things] in a third; it must be said that predication by identity can be threefold: either [taking it] thus, that essence is compared to essence, or essence to property, or property to property. When, then, there is predication by identity through the comparison of essence to essence, an essential identity is noted, as when it is said, *magnitude is goodness*. When again through the comparison of essence to property, likewise an essential identity is noted. But when there is comparison of property to property, since property imports nothing but a relation [*ratio*] and relation [*relatio*] or respect, then an identity of *ratio* is noted. And hence it is that one essential property is predicated of another, and property of essence, since the mode of predicating is uniform in these toward one another and toward that in which they agree, since by identity of essence. But it is not so, when property is predicated of property. For when property is predicated of person, an agreement is noted in substance and essence and supposit. But when it is predicated of another property, an agreement is noted in *ratio* and respect. And therefore it is not similar; rather, there is an accident there: they agree in substance, therefore in respect.

4. *To the last*, concerning the agreement of natures in one person, the response is plain, since the communication of idioms is not in the abstract but in the concrete, since *deity is not humanity*, but *God is man*: likewise it is in the case proposed. Thus all things are plain.